The present invention relates to a water supply tank unit for storing a water supply tank which supplies moistening water to a heating apparatus having a moistening function.
As microwave heating apparatuses in the related art, there are a single function type apparatus for performing only microwave heating, a combination oven having a convection heater for generating hot air in addition to microwave heating, and so on. A microwave heating apparatus capable of supplying microwave and stream into a heating chamber has been also discussed.
As disclosed in JP-A-09-101034 (Japanese Application Publication Number: Hei 09-101034), for the microwave heating apparatus to which a moistening function is added, various methods such as a method of generating steam from a boiler provided outside the heating chamber and introducing the steam into the heating chamber have been proposed.
The microwave heating apparatus to which such a moistening function for generating steam is added has a water supply tank that can be attached/detached to/from a storage space formed in an exterior. Water in the water supply tank is dripped into the boiler by a water feed pump.
Incidentally, in the recent microwave heating apparatus, an operation panel of the microwave heating apparatus has been arranged in a door portion or a control circuit has been arranged near the bottom for the requirement of increase in volume of the heating chamber and reduction in size of the apparatus as a whole.
In the microwave heating apparatus formed so that the water supply tank can be attached/detached to/from the storage space formed outside the apparatus, the storage space has to be provided as a large space for setting the water supply tank detachably. This however causes difficulty of attaining increase in volume of the heating chamber and reduction in size of the apparatus as a whole.
It may be therefore conceived that the water supply tank is stored in a narrow space between the heating chamber and an exterior panel in a side portion of the apparatus. When a storage portion for storing the water supply tank is provided in this space, it is however difficult to store the water supply tank in the storage space steadily and connect a water supply port of the water supply tank to a water intake port on the apparatus side steadily. Furthermore, it is difficult to check whether the water supply port is connected to the water intake port steadily or not, so that there is the possibility that water leakage in the apparatus may be caused by failure in the connection.